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Neglected Treasure ::
Put Da Vinci’s “Last Supper” to good use…
Source: Perspective Vol8 No4 © Perspective 2001
One of the worlds most famous pieces of art would have to be the “Last Supper”, by Leonardo De Vinci. Most people have at least seen photos of it, or tacky reproductions of it on posters or stain glass windows. It’s that picture of Jesus at the centre of this long table and all his disciples either side of him. Well the Last Supper was actually painted by De Vinci as a fresco on the wall of a monastery’s dining room.
Unfortunately poor old Leonardo hasn’t been too well served by history. The wall began to crumble almost immediately he’d finished painting it, because the monks had only built it with loose dirt. Some early friars even cut a door through the wall, right where Christ’s feet were.
Then over time the chamber stopped being a dinning room and became in turn a stable, a storage-room, a prison and a barracks. Can you imagine that, a roomful of donkeys, or convicts in a room with one the greatest pictures in history on the wall. And finally to add insult to injury, when they finally decided to restore the painting up a little, some of the restoration was so sloppy as to be scandalous. One artist in particular was so casual about the task that he actually gave Saint James six fingers on one hand!
All in all the art world now mourns that such a treasure could be so neglected, so overlooked, so under valued and treated so poorly. But friends if its a tragedy to treat a picture of Jesus like that. How much worse is it to treat the person of Jesus like that. To neglect him, to overlook him, to under value and to misunderstand him is a disaster! That was Herod’s mistake. He let his pride and his ignorance get in the way and so he missed the good news that the birth of Jesus was the coming of a King who was wanting to save us.